Mars Odyssey Spacecraft Will Recover From Recent Glitch, NASA Says

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A veteran NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars is slowly bouncing
back from a malfunction suffered last month, but mission managers
expect the orbiter to make a full recovery, agency officials
said.

In early June, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter lost the use of one of
its three reaction wheels, which help control the probe's
attitude and orientation in space without needing to fire
thrusters.

When the wheel jammed, Odyssey placed itself into a so-called
safe mode, which points the spacecraft toward Earth (rather than
its normal downward position facing Mars) to ensure better
communications access. Mission controllers then instructed
Odyssey to
use a spare reaction wheel onboard as they assessed the
situation.

On July 11, after performing a maneuver to adjust its orbit,
Odyssey again placed itself into a precautionary safe mode. The
spacecraft remained in this state for 21 hours before mission
managers began recovering normal operations, according to NASA
officials.

"It's out of safe mode and they're adding science observations
and functions a day at a time, in the process of getting it back
to full operations," said Guy Webster, a spokesman at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. [ Mars
Odyssey: Pictures from Longest Mars Mission ]

Mission controllers are expecting the 11-year-old orbiter to
eventually resume its regular tasks.

"We are on a cautious path to resume Odyssey's science and relay
operations soon," Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey project manager at JPL
in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement last week.

In addition to
mapping the surface of the Red Planet, Mars Odyssey also acts
as a key data relay station between NASA's Mars Exploration Rover
Opportunity and Earth. Odyssey's glitch, however, did not affect
the rover's ground operations, Webster told SPACE.com.

NASA is also planning to use Odyssey to help relay information
during the upcoming landing of its newest Mars rover, Curiosity,
which is set to touch down on the Red Planet on the night of Aug.
5. Originally, Odyssey was expected to have a full view of
Curiosity's landing on Mars, but the glitch last month may have
altered the orbiter's position in space, said Doug
McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA
Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"Odyssey looks like it may not be where we expect it to be,"
McCuistion said in a news briefing Monday (July 16).

This means that ground controllers may have to wait several
minutes before knowing whether the Curiosity rover survived its
harrowing trip through the Martian atmosphere.

To prevent any kind of delay, NASA may opt to move Odyssey to
ensure that it can collect uninterrupted observations of
Curiosity's landing. A final decision on the proposed maneuver
has yet to be made, Webster said.

Mars Odyssey was launched in April 2001 and has been orbiting the
Red Planet longer than any other Mars mission in history. The
11-year-old orbiter has been mapping the Martian surface to study
the planet's chemical and mineral distribution.